Category: Health Care Plans

Penelope Kokkinides was chosen to rejoin InnovaCare Health in June 2015, as the Chief Administrative Officer. She held a prior role as Chief Operating Officer for the company. Kokkinides has a wealth of knowledge in government programs as well as exceptional knowledge in the area of managed care. Kokkinides earned a Masters Degree in social work by attending New York University. Her education continued with Columbia University School of Public Health, where she earned a Master’s Degree in public health.

Prior to rejoining the New Jersey-based company, Kokkinides was serving in a leadership role as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Centerlight HealthCare. Her responsibilities involved the oversight of the management and strategic direction of managed care operations. Kokkinides has served as Chief Operating Officer for Aveta Inc. and Touchstone Health HMO, Inc., where she specialized in government programs and contributed innovative changes to the company. Kokkinides has served in other leadership capacities, such as Corporate Vice President for Care Management and Disease Management with AmeriChoice, a Medicaid insurance company. AmeriChoice is a subsidiary purchased by UnitedHealth Group for $530 million. After the acquisition and transition of AmeriChoice, Kokkinides was chosen to take the leadership role for developing and implementing the company’s healthcare model for the Care Management and Disease Management division.

In 2017, the Trump Administration invited Kokkinides to attend an eight women panel to discuss the changes that the federal health care legislation was facing. The “Women in Healthcare” panel met with President Trump and Senior Administrators for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), at a time when changes were being proposed for Peurto Rico’s Medicare Advantage program. For the last seven years, Peurto Rico’s Medicare Advantage program has been decreased by more than $1 billion. With two of the islands biggest Medicare Advantage plans on the island and 560,000 beneficiaries, InnovaCare Health has seen the impact. Kokkinides provided exceptional insight into the panel for advertising any unnecessary budget cuts that are typically disproportionate to the other cuts throughout the states.

There were more than 450,000 InnovaCare Health members affected by Hurricane Maria in September 2017, and since that time, Kokkinides has provided her leadership input for bringing an infrastructure to the island for needed care and physician services. InnovaCare Health raised more than $4 million to support the hurricane relief efforts. According to Kokkinides, the entire organization is supportive and has been an accountable culture for seeing that the island recovers. She says the support is what defines InnovaCare Health. “Although we know an enormous amount of work lies ahead, it has been uplifting to see what a difference our organization is already making in the lives of those in need,” said Kokkinides.